Can Trump be the first to go directly from corner office to Oval Office?

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Many of the nation's early presidents were successful businessmen as well as political leaders. George Washington was a wealthy landowner who took an active role in managing his vast estate before leading the Continental Army.

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Herbert Hoover was perhaps the most prominent American businessman to rise to the presidency. He did so with no prior elected experience, though he held several official posts. His career as a mining engineer made him a multimillionaire, amassing a fortune estimated by The Atlantic Magazine at about $75 million in today's dollars.

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Wendell Willkie was the last person before Donald Trump to have never held government office prior to winning the Republican nomination. Willkie had been a successful lawyer and later became president of Commonwealth & Southern, a major electric utilities holding company based in New York.

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Before entering politics, Harry Truman was a haberdasher, the owner of a men's clothing store. The store was a failure, and he spent years repaying related debts. He fared far better as a president than as a businessman, frequently ranked by historians as one of the top five presidents.

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"After all," Calvin Coolidge once said, "the chief business of the American people is business." Coolidge's business was primarily that of a career politician, but he also worked for some time as the vice president of the Nonotuck Savings Bank in Northampton, Massachusetts.

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After serving in World War II and graduating from Yale University, George H.W. Bush traveled to Midland, Texas, where he began working in the oil industry. His son, George W. Bush, was also involved in the oil business in Texas.

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Ross Perot started off as a data processing salesman for IBM in the late 1950s in Texas before founding the Electronic Data Systems Corp., which would eventually make him a billionaire. In 1992, Perot made an independent run for president.

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Mitt Romney was a successful executive for the private equity firm Bain Capital before jumping into the world of politics. He eventually became governor of Massachusetts before White House bids in 2008 and 2012.

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Several business executives have sought the presidency in recent elections, but most never made it past the party nomination process. Former Godfather's Pizza CEO Herman Cain ran in the Republican race in 2012 and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina did so this past year.

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Donald Trump's entry into the 2016 presidential race was initially met with skepticism, but the eccentric New York real estate developer proved himself to be a skilled politician with a talent for attracting media attention. Trump held his front-runner status throughout the primary season, earning more votes ahead of the GOP convention than any candidate in the party's history.

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Story highlights

Trump has never held elected office, a top government post or a high military rank

Many historians see the surge of business candidates as a throwback

Washington (CNN)If Donald Trump makes it from the corner office to the Oval Office, he will be pulling off an unprecedented feat: He will be the only head of the executive branch of government whose principal professional credential is having served as a chief executive officer.

Plenty of presidential candidates have pointed to their business acumen in making a case for the White House, most recently Republican Mitt Romney in 2012.

But Trump is a rarity for a major party nominee, since he's never held elected office, a top government post or a high military rank.

In recent election cycles, candidates from the private sector have surged, suggesting voters are more open to politicians with business resumes, though no others have made it as far as Trump.

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Many historians, however, see the feat as less a modern development than a throwback to the early days of the republic.

A brief history of the 'businessman president'

"The idea of presidents as businessmen has a long history," Dan Mahaffee, director of policy at the Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress, told CNN.

Mahaffee noted that many of the earliest Founding Fathers, including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, had various business interests as plantation owners.

Indeed, America's first president was quite the entrepreneur.

In addition to running the large Mt. Vernon plantation in northern Virginia, Washington also served as head of the Potomac Company, which made canal infrastructure improvements along the Potomac River. And the whiskey distillery he operated on his property was the largest whiskey distillery in America at the time of his death in 1799, producing 11,000 gallons a year, according to the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington.

However, Washington's business success was not without controversy. Like many plantations at the time -- including other plantations owned by presidents -- Mt. Vernon used slave labor. The slaves were only freed after the death of Martha Washington.

But Mahaffee said that in subsequent years, "stronger political institutions and a political class developed," leading to "a shift towards lawyers, career politicians and candidates with military experience -- usually a general who had distinguished himself in a recent war."

Photos:Donald Trump's rise

President-elect Donald Trump has been in the spotlight for years. From developing real estate and producing and starring in TV shows, he became a celebrity long before winning the White House.

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Photos:Donald Trump's rise

Trump at age 4. He was born in 1946 to Fred and Mary Trump in New York City. His father was a real estate developer.

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Trump, left, in a family photo. He was the second-youngest of five children.

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Trump, center, stands at attention during his senior year at the New York Military Academy in 1964.

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Trump, center, wears a baseball uniform at the New York Military Academy in 1964. After he graduated from the boarding school, he went to college. He started at Fordham University before transferring and later graduating from the Wharton School, the University of Pennsylvania's business school.

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Photos:Donald Trump's rise

Trump stands with Alfred Eisenpreis, New York's economic development administrator, in 1976 while they look at a sketch of a new 1,400-room renovation project of the Commodore Hotel. After graduating college in 1968, Trump worked with his father on developments in Queens and Brooklyn before purchasing or building multiple properties in New York and Atlantic City, New Jersey. Those properties included Trump Tower in New York and Trump Plaza and multiple casinos in Atlantic City.

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Photos:Donald Trump's rise

Trump attends an event to mark the start of construction of the New York Convention Center in 1979.

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Trump wears a hard hat at the Trump Tower construction site in New York in 1980.

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Trump was married to Ivana Zelnicek Trump from 1977 to 1990, when they divorced. They had three children together: Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric.

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The Trump family, circa 1986.

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Trump uses his personal helicopter to get around New York in 1987.

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Trump stands in the atrium of the Trump Tower.

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Trump attends the opening of his new Atlantic City casino, the Taj Mahal, in 1989.

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Trump signs his second book, "Trump: Surviving at the Top," in 1990. Trump has published at least 16 other books, including "The Art of the Deal" and "The America We Deserve."

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Photos:Donald Trump's rise

Trump and singer Michael Jackson pose for a photo before traveling to visit Ryan White, a young child with AIDS, in 1990.

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Trump dips his second wife, Marla Maples, after the couple married in a private ceremony in New York in December 1993. The couple divorced in 1999 and had one daughter together, Tiffany.

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Trump putts a golf ball in his New York office in 1998.

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An advertisement for the television show "The Apprentice" hangs at Trump Tower in 2004. The show launched in January of that year. In January 2008, the show returned as "Celebrity Apprentice."

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Photos:Donald Trump's rise

A 12-inch talking Trump doll is on display at a toy store in New York in September 2004.

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Photos:Donald Trump's rise

Trump attends a news conference in 2005 that announced the establishment of Trump University. From 2005 until it closed in 2010, Trump University had about 10,000 people sign up for a program that promised success in real estate. Three separate lawsuits -- two class-action suits filed in California and one filed by New York's attorney general -- argued that the program was mired in fraud and deception. Trump's camp rejected the suits' claims as "baseless." And Trump has charged that the New York case against him is politically motivated.

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Trump attends the U.S. Open tennis tournament with his third wife, Melania Knauss-Trump, and their son, Barron, in 2006. Trump and Knauss married in 2005.

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Trump wrestles with "Stone Cold" Steve Austin at WrestleMania in 2007. Trump has close ties with the WWE and its CEO, Vince McMahon.

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Photos:Donald Trump's rise

For "The Apprentice," Trump was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in January 2007.

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Trump appears on the set of "The Celebrity Apprentice" with two of his children -- Donald Jr. and Ivanka -- in 2009.

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Trump poses with Miss Universe contestants in 2011. Trump had been executive producer of the Miss Universe, Miss USA and Miss Teen USA pageants since 1996.

Trump -- flanked by U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio, left, and Ted Cruz -- speaks during a CNN debate in Miami on March 10. Trump dominated the GOP primaries and emerged as the presumptive nominee in May.

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The Trump family poses for a photo in New York in April.

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Trump speaks during a campaign event in Evansville, Indiana, on April 28. After Trump won the Indiana primary, his last two competitors dropped out of the GOP race.

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Trump delivers a speech at the Republican National Convention in July, accepting the party's nomination for President. "I have had a truly great life in business," he said. "But now, my sole and exclusive mission is to go to work for our country -- to go to work for you. It's time to deliver a victory for the American people."

Trump apologizes in a video, posted to his Twitter account in October, for vulgar and sexually aggressive remarks he made a decade ago regarding women. "I said it, I was wrong and I apologize," Trump said, referring to lewd comments he made during a previously unaired taping of "Access Hollywood." Multiple Republican leaders rescinded their endorsements of Trump after the footage was released.

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Trump walks on stage with his family after he was declared the election winner on November 9. "Ours was not a campaign, but rather, an incredible and great movement," he told his supporters in New York.

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Trump is joined by his family as he is sworn in as President on January 20.

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The notion of a businessman-president enjoyed a bit of a resurgence during the so-called "Roaring Twenties," a time of economic prosperity for the nation.

Republican Calvin Coolidge, who was president from 1923-1929, famously said, "The chief business of the American people is business." Although Coolidge had been a career politician, he had also been the vice president of the Nonotuck Savings Bank in Northampton, Massachusetts. His administration was defined in part by its hands-off approach to the economy.

His successor, Herbert Hoover, was perhaps the most prominent American businessman to rise to the presidency. His career as a mining engineer made him a multimillionaire, amassing a fortune that The Atlantic Magazine estimated at about $75 million in today's dollars.

But the start of the Great Depression in 1929 marked a shift away from presidents with substantial business experience.

The GOP's 1940 nominee, Wendell Willkie, was the last person before Trump to have never held government office prior to winning the nomination. He had been president of Commonwealth & Southern, a major electric utilities holding company based in New York.

Willkie campaigned against Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal -- he called it an "attack on business" upon accepting the nomination -- but was easily defeated.

But in the 1970s, presidents with entrepreneurial expertise once again emerged.

Jimmy Carter had been a successful farmer prior to being elected, making him a bit of a return to the tradition of the Founders.

And George H.W. and George W. Bush both worked in the Texas oil industry, with the elder Bush having founded his own company and the younger working for various oil firms. Bush also helped lead the purchase of the Texas Rangers professional baseball team, making a profit upon the team's sale in 1998.

Independent candidate and billionaire Ross Perot mounted third-party bids in 1992 and 1996 largely on the strength of his business credentials, getting almost 20% of the vote in the first contest.

And former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, a successful founder of Bain Capital, a private equity firm, and former CEO of Bain and Company, a consulting company, won the Republican nomination in 2012 touting his record in business.

Republicans have argued that the qualities of businessmen make them especially fit to be good political leaders, emphasizing their ability to motivate and manage others and make prudent decisions with both short-term and long-term consequences in mind.

Business experience can also provide candidates with a broader understanding of economic issues, which tend to be the top concern of modern voters.

And the Republican Party itself has been increasingly identified with corporate America, advocating business-friendly policies like lower taxes and few regulations. The 2016 platform reads: "Republicans will pursue free market policies that are the surest way to boost employment and create job growth and economic prosperity for all."

While running for president in 2012, Romney even pitched the idea that private sector experience should be a constitutional pre-requisite for the presidency.

And while Romney lost the election to incumbent Barack Obama -- whose background is in constitutional law -- there are indications voters are more receptive to candidates from the private sector than in previous eras.

Given all the news of American debt, said William Seale of the White House Historical Association, "people think that a businessman could come in and fix the situation, manage the books."

And also drawbacks

Yet Trump's business ties also pose a liability. His many international business holdings could create conflicts of interest for him if elected.